Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.
RICHARD J. FOSTERPrayer is – listening for the still small voice of God. Listening with the “ear of our hearts.”
More Richard J. Foster Quotes
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And so I urge you: carry on an ongoing conversation with God about the daily stuff of life, a little like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. For now, do not worry about “proper” praying, just talk to God.
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We must understand the connection between inner solitude and inner silence; they are inseparable. All the masters of the interior life speak of the two in the same breath.
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In the context of Quaker worship, it is perfectly appropriate for any person in the congregation to speak a timely word from the Lord.
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Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.
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In intellectual honesty, we should be willing to study and explore the spiritual life with all the rigor and determination we would give to any field of research.
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Prayer is simply saying “thank you, bless you, praise you.”
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The person who does not seek the kingdom first does not seek it at all, regardless of how worthy the idolatry that he or she has substituted for it.
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Adoration is the spontaneous yearning of the heart to worship, honor, magnify, and bless God. We ask nothing but to cherish him. We seek nothing but his exaltation. We focus on nothing but his goodness.
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..the true test of spirituality [is] in the freedom to live among people compassionately….Prayer frees us to be controlled by God.
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Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. But when praying, we come “underneath,” where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.
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Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in “muchness” and “manyness,” he will rest satisfied.
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As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.
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Simplicity enables us to live lives of integrity in the face of the terrible realities of our global village.
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We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.
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Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer in action.
RICHARD J. FOSTER